


Coming Home

by Blazedrgn



Category: Sister Claire (Webcomic)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-20
Updated: 2015-09-20
Packaged: 2018-04-22 15:17:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,400
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4840364
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Blazedrgn/pseuds/Blazedrgn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The twins were too little to remember the place they were from, but for Catharine it was as if she never left Thronum of Mare.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Coming Home

Time. It seems to pass like a river’s flow; neverending and often cruel, its speed different for each person, yet something no one could ever stop or change. One thing that didn’t change was a memory of younger days, something Catharine was remembering all the clearer as a familiar island came into view.

Lupo and Rosie were determinedly rowing them forward, drawing them closer to a shore that looked black but still seemed to glint and shimmer reflected light. A hand over her chest as she feels it tighten, but her eyes never leave the shoreline.

_Catharine’s twelve, barely conscious as she feels the roll and lulling of waves replaced by solid ground beneath her, water or sand flecks her face and… words… repeated over and over again to call her back from the dark, even if just briefly._

Another time, years after, she was searching up and down for clams and oysters to sell, hoping to raise enough money for the tourney entry fee.

More time yet, as they drew closer, soft green eyes looked to where a wooden chair had sat on the sand, right there… Catharine could practically see it still settled there, a reclining chair next to it, and a soft lavender grey towel stretched out beside it.

_She could still hear their chatter, their laugh._

The caves, they were still tucked away to the side… they were visible from here. Inside was where Gabby would come up whenever she came to visit, they’d kept clothes tucked away for the selkie to wear after coming out from the water, clothes she’d even made herself so her friend would have something to wear other than the sailcloth and shirt she’d been given her first few visits.

Another time…

_They were fleeing, escaping by water. Tide was low, but the sandbank wasn’t an option, they would sink before reaching halfway. Boats weren’t an option either, the Hellsings were on the far side, keeping whatever plagued the Thronum of Mare within its walls. They thought they would come to help but no… no… Rosie and Marie wailing loudly no matter how they tried to calm the twins. They wouldn’t stop crying… the bells wouldn’t stop ringing… echoing through the air as they ran…_

This time, the twins were silent.

They all were.

Catharine’s eyes were so fixed on what was left of the rising homes above the the walls she didn’t even notice when they hit land.

“Mom?”

Green eyes finally blinked, mind returning to the present, looking to Claire and Lupo, each of them holding out a hand to her in a silent offer of assistance. She took one in either hand, steadying herself best she could before hopping out, holding on a little tighter as the ground almost seemed to rock as the boat had done for a moment, but thankfully was quick to pass. Letting go, she stood on black sand once more.

The roar of the waves and screech of gulls seemed to echo through her, reaching into her mind and through to her past.

_Home, she was home._

Mercy had been home for so long now, and she hadn’t ever imagined coming back before all this, how could she? But… there was a feeling of calm, ease. Despite everything that had transpired, there seemed to be a simple feeling of being, as if she’d only been gone five minutes, or had only spent the morning on the far shore. Everything seemed to wrap around her as if welcoming her back.

Rosie was talking, but Catharine didn’t hear, she wasn’t listening, her feet already carrying her along a familiar path.

_Up the stairs, down the street, past the houses, and bakers street too, over the bridge and… to the left… to the left is my… my shop, further to the right and along is the wall. Near the center, the fountain. But before that… all of that… up, to the right, down the stairs, further in… there-_

Catharine finally stopped halfway up the steep climb of stairs, realization setting in as she came back to her surroundings.

“Is it your chest? Y-you… you can take my hand, we’ll go up- mom?” Claire stopped short as her mothers green eyes glassed over, filling with tears that threatened to spill, chest seizing slightly as if she couldn’t breathe.

What if it wasn’t there anymore? What if the building was gone? Worse yet, what if it still stood, their bodies, bones, scattered where they’d fallen. Or shards…

Catharine sank to the ground, sitting upon the steps as she rested her back to the wall as she wrapped her arms around her knees in an attempt to hug them to her chest as the thought continued to repeat in her mind. A shard… a shard speaking with Maman’s voice. She couldn’t do it, she couldn’t, not that. Anything but that. She knew about shards, she’d done her best to help so long ago… the words they spoke, asking _why why it hurts so much why…_

Thinking that perhaps it was the heat and lack of shade on the way over, Claire had already fished a handkerchief from her pocket and wetted it with water from her canteen. Tucking dark red locks behind her mother’s ears, she gently dabbed the cool cloth across her mother’s forehead and down to her cheeks.

Time. A moment or two passed, perhaps more, but enough until Catharine’s breathing finally calmed. Weary green eyes turned to the remaining stairs, slowly following them up as if trying to imagine taking each step.

“Claire… oh dearheart I don’t think I can.” She croaked softly. When was she last so equally torn… part of her wanted to finish those stairs, to go back down the same path her feet had taken her down so many times… and simply getting back in the boat and pushing off. To go where? Did it even matter? She’d been without a home before, perhaps… perhaps she…

“CATHARINE!”

A familiar voice cried her name the waves and the screaming gulls, and Catharine stood up so fast she almost toppled down the stairs.

She saw second boat fast approaching, its sail slacking as the wind seemed to empty out the same time a figure dove gracefully over the side.

“What are you doing?! You didn’t need to get out! I was getting us there fast enough!”

Despite the distance Jackson’s panicked voice rang clear, and though the others worried, attempting to fathom the fact that the others were there, Catharine had already slipped past them with an ease she thought she’d lost so many years ago.

“OSCAR!” She shouted back best she could, eyes never leaving the waves of blond barely visible in the water, which almost seemed to be thrashed to foam as Oscar struck for the shore, swimming for all she was worth.

Tripping and stumbling over the sand, Catharine determinedly rose again each time, making it back down and across the beach just as Oscar was pulling herself up out of the water, almost kicking sand on her beloved in the process and part of Catharine almost laughed at the irony.

As Oscar stood, breathless and dripping, the two of them simply standing there looking at one another… hesitating, almost as if they were afraid to embrace the other.

“Catharine…” The name bubbled up in Oscars throat, a weak, hopeful smile tugging at the corners of her lips. There were so many questions, many that could simply be summed up with a simple ‘why’. Part of her had even started to wonder if Catherine had felt abandoned in that cell, and she’d somehow given her beloved reason to believe she might never come to her rescue… that there was only Claire…

But no sooner had the name left her lips did Catharine’s expression crumble, giving a strangled cry as she latched her arms around Oscar, hugging her tight as tears spilled over, warbled apologies repeated over and over again while accompanied by Oscar’s name. Guilt almost seemed to drown Oscar in that moment, cursing any moment she’d ever doubted the one who held her heart.

Tears fell freely as Oscar returned the embrace, leaning down to nuzzle her head into the crook of Catharine’s neck once more. It didn’t matter, none of it did. She’d still listen later, hear their story while sharing theirs, but it would be alright, and it was that which mattered most. Oscar murmured her own apologies and reassurances, all while saying how glad… how _elated_ she was that Catharine was alive.

Not too far from them, Jackson had brought up their boat alongside the other, Azi pulling it halfway in before a familiar scent reached her nose over the smell of the ocean. A familiar scent she had long since trailed alongside the runaway witches. Abandoning her task to glance around quickly, grinning wide as she spotted her brother trying to hide behind the twins.

At first she thought it was the nuns with her, and Azi started forward, ready to reassure him that these witches weren’t so bad at all! Even the cranky, bulky, short one was alright once you got to know her.

But Lupo cringed at her advance, ducking further back. One of the twins glanced between the two of them, frowning at Azi and holding out her cape slightly to give Lupo more to hide behind. They were cautious, both the twins were, hesitant too, but there was a hint of hopefulness too for those she had traveled with.

But Lupo…

It wasn’t the nuns, it was her.

Azi’s heart sank into her stomach, not having forgotten their parting words to each other. After the encounter with the titanic shard the words had practically looped in her mind until they’d found the trail again, fresh. Till then she’d wondered if she would ever see her stupid big brother again… and had almost cried when finding his scent after the giant shard.

Fluidly, she flowed from her half form into a full wolf, laying down upon the dark sand. Tail swished and smacked the sand, ears pressed back against her head as she scooted herself forward on her stomach just a little, not wanting to scare him away.

She hadn’t thought of it this way… of all the times Azi imagined them catching up once again, the thought of him being fearful or hesitant of her had never crossed her mind.

Ears twitched slightly at the sound of the others coming off the boat, keeping back for now, yet it seemed more from awkward uncertainty than anything else

“Well now, isn’t this a merry reunion.” Magpie murmured to Marguerite, distracting her for a moment before sweeping the nurse up into her arms before hopping off the boat and onto the shore.

“You didn’t need to do that.” Marguerite scoffed, smacking a hand against her shoulder.

“Now now just because I’m not a gentleman today doesn’t mean I’m without chivalry.” Was the teasingly tutted reply. There was tension in the air, even as Catharine and Oscar remained lost in their reunion, and the brown wolf whimpered and squirmed forward, a soft low howl rising in the air that tugged at the hearts who heard it.

Lupo held steady a heartbeat more at that sorrowful sound of her apology, and he was ducking around the twins, Rosie’s hand grasping at air as he ran forward, voice warbling yips and whimpering howls.

Azi was on him in seconds, clearing the space between them to tackle into her brother once more, nipping and growling playfully at his ears, as they fell backwards onto the sand, huffing and taking in the scent of how alive he was, certain he was doing the same.

Jackson was helping Olga stand, the weakness still lingering in her legs. The shorter nun was looking Claire now, and the familiar twin branches of horns coming from her brow. But worst of all… what twisted Olga’s gut was that Claire didn’t even look mad, or afraid. Just… sad perhaps. She could’ve handed other things, she’d been in such a rage she almost killed them both! Olga would’ve understood that… wouldn’t have blamed Claire at all, but it seemed the younger sister just… oh hell what could she even begin to say? Even as Jackson’s hip bumps to hers in silent encouragement, her throat seems to squeeze down any sound it might’ve made.

Thankfully enough, it seems someone else is ready to speak up first.

“Well now, isn’t this a beautiful sight, but why don’t we all move upstairs before the tide comes in.”

In unison they all turn their heads in the direction of the kind voice, the source of which it seemed was someone who didn’t come with the group. A woman who looked perhaps far older than any of them, yet still had a head of dark brown hair waving curls down almost to her waist with a straw hat secured atop. Crows feet crinkled at the corners of warm brown eyes as she smiled, and lines accented her cheeks as well, a tender kindness in the simple smile that almost seemed to reach out to them as if it held magic.

The silence stretched but a moment, yet before anyone could ask anything, a sudden burst of cries made the rest of the group jump, Magpie looking for what had to be screeching bluejays fighting over some morsel of food. However the sound came not from birds, but from Catharine and Oscar as they cried aloud in unison, then repeated the same name over and over again as they raced towards the woman.

“MAMAN! MAMAN! MAMAN!”

The woman laughed and held out her arms wide to catch both girls in a big hug, clutching them close best she could. Oscar had sunk to her knees to be closer to the womans height, clinging to the woman, hands clenching the yellow sundress as if her life depended on it, Catharine doing the same.

“I’m sorry… I’m so sorry I left… I shouldn’t have-”

“We didn’t know… we shouldn’t have gone…”

“Hush hush, no, do you two have any idea how glad I am to see you both alive?” Maman gave a watery laugh, placing kisses upon the crown of golden yellow and dark red, as if they were still no more than elbow high. “Oh my girls… my little girls… welcome _home_.”


End file.
